It Happened One Night (1934)

[Musicguy]

When the film elements are good the film looks great (The hitch hiking scene) but when the film elements are poor the film looks it. The breakfast scene looks good until they zoomed in for a closer shot (I'm guessing it wasn't filmed like this and was zoomed in post production) There is a lot of soft focus and the river scene is a mess - but those are the film elements

There are a lot of scenes which look terrible - but always have - and that's what survives from 1934 (Columbia didn't think this was going to be an "A" picture, plus they were a second rate studio at the time and the budget shows)

Some of the Warner films from around the same time look remarkably better.